It is typically much more difficult to interact with mobile devices (such as cell phones and PDAs) than with personal computers. The small form factor of mobile devices makes it particularly hard to input text, with or without hardware keypads. Copying data from one screen to another is also more difficult because of a lack of multi-window or built-in copy/paste supports. In addition, cellular networks are typically less stable in connectivity than land-line or WiFi connections and have longer latency, resulting in longer user wait time for network-based applications (such as Web browser based activities). These are the disadvantages that need to be ameliorated before users can more extensively use a mobile application, particularly network-based applications including mobile browsing.
CoScripter from IBM Corporation, New York, is a system that can record and automatically replay user interaction steps for Web browser based tasks. A user can explicitly request to have his interactions with the browser recorded, and save the recorded information in a scripting language. Such scripts can be shared with other users and be automatically played back later, with minimal user action required. One drawback of CoScripter is that it depends on an explicit user instruction for recording and playing back scripts. This puts a burden on the user to identify frequent tasks and to remember scripts corresponding to frequent tasks. In addition, although CoScripter reduces the amount of user input for recorded tasks, it doesn't reduce user wait time for such tasks.
One way to reduce user wait time in Web browsing is to break larger Web pages into smaller pages. Much research has been conducted in methods for segmenting larger Web pages. They include approaches based on fractal theory, on machine learning techniques, and on content distance and page layout.
While Web page segmentation techniques generally reduce user wait time for each page-load request as pages now become smaller, they may not reduce the total amount of user wait time for a given task. Reducing the sizes of pages likely also increases the number of navigations steps a user must take to complete a task, which may increase the total amount of time it takes for the task.